Day: June 24, 2015

NBC allowed comedians to start spreading the word, one month ahead of the premiere of season 9 of Last Comic Standing, that they’re appearing and competing among the Top 100 stand-ups selected for the “Invitationals” round of auditions — taped this spring before judges Roseanne Barr, Keenen Ivory Wayans and Norm Macdonald. Can’t you just wait to see them experience this? REMIX! So…Who’s in? Who’s out? Who’s still hiding out? So far, the following comedians have revealed themselves as contestants (in alphabetical order!): UPDATED with more names of people we saw onscreen during the Invitationals Nick Allen Sara Armour...

Pam Matteson, a stand-up comedian and impersonator who performed in the 1988 movie Punchline, has died after her third bout with cancer in the past decade. Matteson was 61. Born Sept. 23, 1953, the Brooklyn native made her way toward Hollywood by the early 1980s, where she scored bit parts in episodes of TV’s Gimme a Break! In 1986, she performed as one of the Girls of The Comedy Store in an hourlong TV special headlined by Shirley Hemphill (What’s Happening?). Her appearance in Punchline as comedian “Utica Blake” soon followed, then credits which included The Tonight Show, a...

Classic role reversal going on here, as Margaret Cho stars in a brand-new Funny or Die video that imagines “if women ran the writers room of the hottest new network sitcom.” Of course, it’s also hilarious that in this parallel universe, that sitcom is The DUFF and The DILF. You’ll have to ask your hip friends if the lingo and acronyms escape you. And you’ll have to ask the networks why they haven’t already greenlit this series. I mean, they said yes at some point to Cougar Town, Selfie and Work It. Actually, that’s all ABC. Get ABC on...

Jeff and Some Aliens, a recurring segment on TripTank, has earned its own spin-off, with Comedy Central announcing a 10-episode order of half-hours for 2016. “It would be so weird if this show wasn’t animated,” said Comedy Central’s programming chief, Kent Alterman. “We’d like to beat the trolls to the punch and be the first to say: ‘They cancelled Futurama for THIS?!,’” said creators Sean Donnelly and Alessandro Minoli. The official series description: Jeff and Some Aliens follows Jeff, the world’s most average guy, and the three aliens sent to study him to determine whether or not humanity should...

Lauren Graham would love to host a late-night TV talk show, even if, as she explained to Conan O’Brien on Tuesday’s Conan, she might go crazy if she did it for 22 years like O’Brien has. O’Brien replied that the job takes on a “Groundhog Day” (as in the movie) feel to it, so he and the crew try to mix things up so it doesn’t feel too repetitive. Still, Graham wondered why she was the only woman CBS asked to sit behind the desk of The Late Late Show this winter during the transition from Craig Ferguson to...